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I believe this (as usually played) is a Rachmaninoff transcription for keyboard, meaning that you might be more likely to find it in a collection of his transcriptions than listed separately under Rimsky-Korsakoff. There may be a few easier transcriptions available under the original composer's name, though. As to how easy this is to play (after appropriate patient practice) - well, Geoffrey Rush, who played the role of David Helfgott in Shine, and who plays no piano, taught himself the piece, so that in the scene in the movie when he sits down and plays in a bar, the other actors really had cause to be astonished. Or so Rush claimed in an interview. The music in the soundtrack is Helfgott's, though, not Rush's.

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There is no end of learning. -Robert Schumann Rules for Young Musicians

Hal Leonard distributes the Rimsky-Korsakof as an individual sheet, catalog 9427. Any sheet music store would have this, and you can also look it up on the Hal Leonard (publisher) web site.It's not hard, it's just. . . busy. My advice, for what it's worth, would be to use a metronome set at 60 for the eighth i.e., dead slow. Learn a page or so per session, repeating at least 3 times, and never miss a fingering or a note. When you feel comfortable, move the metronome up two notches, and do the same process. The idea is to work the tempo up slowly over time, perhaps weeks, so that by the time you are close to performance tempo, it is still perfectly accurate, and technically easy. There is a truism that the faster one plays, the easier it should feel. If a work (or passage) feels hard and your hand/arm tightens, you're trying to play it fast too soon, and will end up incorporating the tension into the work, and you'll start to hate working on it. Take your time, no hurries. Allow yourself 8 weeks to learn the piece, working diligently at an always manageable tempo, slowly increasing the tempo with the metronome, working in sections (as above, perhaps a page per session). As long as I'm on a soap-box (grin!): make sure everything is included at slow tempo, and every other tempo. This includes all articulations, fingerings, dynamics, etc. Make it perfect slow, and work it up. When you're done, you'll "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" -- couldn't help it, had to throw that in. . .

Originally posted by Palindrome:As to how easy this is to play (after appropriate patient practice) - well, Geoffrey Rush, who played the role of David Helfgott in Shine, and who plays no piano, taught himself the piece, so that in the scene in the movie when he sits down and plays in a bar, the other actors really had cause to be astonished. Or so Rush claimed in an interview. The music in the soundtrack is Helfgott's, though, not Rush's.[/b]

WOW! I had no idea about this. That is truley amazing. I was just watching Shine night before last (for about the millionth time) and I've always thought that whenever he "played", someone off stage was actually playing it, or that the sound was just added in later during editing. I had no idea about this.

Oh. I've rarley been online at all these days. I haven't been here (on this site, that is) for a while and I have some time today to come on and read some of the posts and write and stuff. Thanks for missing me.